Version 2.16.3

Public Release Date: June 3, 2019

Welcome to Connect version 2.16.3! Here are the exciting new changes to all Get Connected, Community Connect, Corporate Connect, Campus Connect, and ReDI sites, released on June 3, 2019.

User Groups Now Associated with Hours (Not Responses)

Previously, a user group member would select a user group when responding to an opportunity. In response to many client requests, we have moved the user group selection option to the hours-submission form.

Volunteers and students should find the process more intuitive now, as they can associate their hours directly with their user groups or courses. 

This significant change has a number of effects, listed in the following sections.

The User Group field can be made required

Many of our clients, especially universities, use user groups to track which students are working to meet course requirements. Site managers can now make it a requirement for students or volunteers to complete the User Group field when logging hours. If the User Group field is required, an additional "N/A" option will be available for those who do not want to associate the hours with a course or user group.

If a volunteer does not belong to any user groups, the User Group field will not be shown, and no selection will be required.

Volunteers can select multiple user groups when submitting hours

Volunteers can now select multiple user groups on the hours form. Previously, they were limited to a single user group when responding to a need.

Volunteers can associate individual hours with user groups

A volunteer can now associated individual hours (those not associated with a need response) with one or more user groups.

SLM Leader Portal has been updated

The SLM Leader Portal, used by course instructors, has been updated to show that courses are associated with hours rather than need responses. In addition, the SLM Leader Portal's percentage charts have been updated to omit any hours that the SLM Leader logs. As a result, the percentages will now reflect student hours only.

Agency managers can see volunteers' user groups

Agency managers can now see all of their volunteers' user groups. When logging hours on behalf of a volunteer, agency managers can now associate the hours with any of the user groups to which the volunteer belongs. (Previously, an agency manager could only see a volunteer's user group if the agency manager also belonged to the user group.) They will also see respondents' user groups when viewing responses so they can know to expect people from corporate or other special groups.

User group can be restricted to assigned needs

For SLM sites, it is often important to prevent a student from adding hours to a course for a need hasn't been approved for that course. The site managers User Group form now has a setting to require students to associate hours with a course only if those hours are for a need that has been assigned to the course in your Connect platform.

Canned reports have been updated

The User Group resume, data explorer, User Group Summary, and Hours by User Group reports have all been updated to reflect the changes outlined in these release notes.

Miscellaneous updates

Here are a few other areas of your site that have been updated to reflect the change to user groups:

  • Forms and tables that reference user groups have been updated. For example, hours tables now show the associated user groups, while most response tables no longer show them.

  • The Import tool has been updated to accept user groups when importing hours.
  • The Benchmarks feature, when assigning user-group-specific benchmarks, has been updated to check hours instead of responses.
  • Check-in tools have been updated to allow volunteers to select their course or user group when checking in.

Update to User Filter for User Group Searches

Site managers can now filter users by those who do not belong to a user group. (Previously, they could only filter for users who did belong to a selected user group.)

Added expressly so that managers can search for "users who are not in my court-mandated user group," this new filter options will provided additional flexibility when sending emails and help in specific use cases as well.

User Group Join Questions

Site managers can now set up questions to be displayed for volunteers or students upon joining a user group. This new feature will particularly benefit sites where court-mandated volunteerism is important, where site managers need users to submit information relevant to the court order before they can be added to the user group.

Option to Hide User Group Resume

Many user group members and students in SLM courses enjoy seeing their user group's impact on the user group resume. In some cases, such as with a user group that has been set up for court-ordered service, a user group resume may not be desired. You can now select to suppress the user group resume from selected user groups.

New Filter on Manager's Responses Table

Site managers can now filter the back end Manage Responses table (Volunteerism > Responses) by the date and time of shift. This will let them create quick views of who will be on site on any given day, and it will let them manage those volunteers more easily.

Bulk Deactivation of Needs

When a site manager has a lot of needs to deactivate all at once, they can now check off needs on the back end Manage Needs table (Volunteerism > Needs) and choose the bulk action Deactivate. The most common use of this feature is to clean up old data quickly.